Cat People

CAT PEOPLE (1942)
75th Anniversary Screening
Tuesday, October 31, at 6:40PM & 10:00PM at the Playhouse 7, NoHo 7, and Royal Theaters.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a special Halloween double feature in the popular Twofer Tuesday Series (two films for the price of one) on October 31. We will show a “double treat” of the 85th anniversary of THE MUMMY (1932) with the 75th anniversary of CAT PEOPLE (1942). Both films epitomize atmospheric black-and-white chills from the classical studio era.

CAT PEOPLE was the first venture from producer Val Lewton (I Walked With a Zombie, Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatcher) as head of RKO’s new horror division in 1942. He gave Jacques Tourneur the chance to direct his first feature with this tale of a new bride (Simone Simon) who fears she is a descendant of a predatory cat family. DeWitt Bodeen (I Remember Mama, Billy Budd) wrote the screenplay from a short story by Lewton, who also employed cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca and editor Mark Robson (future director of Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls), to create one of the most imaginative low-budget films ever made. Tourneur and Musuraca later collaborated on one of the seminal film noirs, Out of the Past.

Roger Ebert called CAT PEOPLE one of the “Great Movies,” extolling it as “frightening in an eerie, mysterious way that was hard to define; the screen harbored unseen threats, and there was an undertone of sexual danger that was more ominous because it was never acted upon.” With Kent Smith, Tom Conway, and Jane Randolph. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1993.